Prime Minister David Cameron won the first TV encounter of the 2015 election, a poll showed. But opposition Labour leader Ed Miliband leveraged a rare opportunity to promote himself on a national stage.

With Cameron’s Conservatives neck-and-neck in the opinion polls with Labour, both are trying to grab an elusive lead over the other before the 7 May ballot to avoid another possible coalition or even a minority government.

Britain’s future in the European Union and its territorial integrity could ride on the outcome, as Cameron is pledging an EU membership referendum and Miliband may need to do a deal with Scottish nationalists intent on breaking up the United Kingdom.

Cameron and Miliband were interviewed separately but back-to-back in their toughest cross-examinations in years, and subjected to question and answer sessions from a studio audience on Sky News and Channel 4.

A snap Guardian/ICM poll afterwards showed 54% of those asked thought Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, had won, compared to 46% who judged Miliband had triumphed.

Cameron refused to debate Miliband head-to-head, saying he felt the leaders of other minor parties should be included too. His aides are thought to have advised him that there was no upside to such a debate which they feared could help Miliband look like more of a prime-minister-in-waiting.

Cameron, 48, initially appeared uncharacteristically unsettled and conceded he’d made mistakes during his five years in power, but asked voters to give him a second term to finish the job of rebuilding the economy.

“If you’re saying we haven’t gone fast enough to cut the deficit, I would agree. We need to complete the job,” said Cameron, who was unable to give precise borrowing figures for the government.

With most of the British press set against him, Thursday’s TV appearance – which covered everything from immigration to economic policy – was a rare opportunity for Miliband to talk to voters directly.

He duly used the opportunity to reject persistent criticism from some of his own lawmakers and the country’s mostly right-wing press that his image as “a geek” made him an electoral liability, saying he didn’t care what people said about him.

“The thing is they see you as a North London geek,” Jeremy Paxman, a famously robust interviewer, told Miliband.

“Who cares? Who does?” came the reply. “You know, I don’t care what the newspapers write about me.”

Miliband, 45, said he had been underestimated before.

“People have thrown a lot at me over four and a half years, but I’m a pretty resilient guy and I’ve been underestimated at every turn. People said I wouldn’t become leader and I did. People said four years ago he can’t become prime minister; I think I can.”

Stuart Thomson, a public affairs consultant at Bircham Dyson Bell, said both men had got through the encounter without making a serious mistake, but that Cameron, the incumbent, had more to lose than Miliband, the challenger.

“There’s no doubt that Miliband exceeded expectations but Cameron held his own,” Thomson told Reuters. “The debate has really started the firing gun on the election and all sides know they are in a real battle.”

Background

The 7 May UK general election will go a long way towards deciding whether Britain will stay in the European Union, or choose to leave, after forty years of uneasy relations.

The ruling Conservatives have promised an in/out referendum on EU membership before the end of 2017 if they win the election, placing Europe's future at the centre of the debate.

Prime Minister David Cameron has said he would campaign for the UK to stay, but only if the EU was able to reform, saying “Britain’s national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable and open European Union.”

However, five years after the formation of the UK’s first coalition government since World War II, the polls are pointing to another hung parliament.

Former minority parties such as the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the pro-EU Green Party now see a realistic chance of entering government via a coalition with either the Conservatives or Labour.

Comments

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“Scottish nationalists intend on breaking up the United Kingdom”? I thought they were over that. Looks like things are even shakier then they appear on the surface.

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an european

27/03/2015 14:38

Vote SNP & UKIP maybe Miliband but forget Cameron

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Mike Parr

27/03/2015 15:58

“Moron-con, who was unable to give precise borrowing figures for the government.” I can help on that one: G eorge Osborne’s own estimates, the national debt will have grown by 26.9% of GDP between 2010 and 2015. (page 19 of the November 2010 OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook which records the debt to GDP ratio as 53.5% of GDP for 2009-10, and page 20 of the December 2014 OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook which records the debt to GDP ratio for 2014-15 as being 80.4%.) In the last 200 years there have only been three prolonged periods of debt accumulation… Read more »

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Charles_m

29/03/2015 16:30

So you are saying that if in 2010 there had been another Brown/Darling government the deficit now would be less???? Remind us of the economic realities of 2010 please

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bettysenior

29/03/2015 17:15

If you do your homework well, you will see that the main architects of the UK’s downfall was Blair and Brown who allowed debt to be amassed like at any other time in the history of the world – about 67% of the total debt that the whole country has (not just the national debt). Indeed it is a debt according to PwC that will be at least $16 trillion this year and where thee projects were undertaken on far better projections. therefore the total debt may well be over $17 trillion and gathering interest all the time. In this… Read more »

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Mike Parr

29/03/2015 18:13

Neither of you can read can you? – debt up between 2010 & 2015 – tory-vermin claim they would reduce it – did not – engineered long lasting recession instead – all their fault. tory-vermin doing what comes naturally.

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Charles_m

29/03/2015 18:54

You should read to – no one denies Tories didn’t do as they say. I asked you to clarify what you thought the deficit might be under Brown/Darling had they stayed on.

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bettysenior

29/03/2015 19:37

If that’s the only reply you can come up with and mere words, you apparently have very little intelligence. Give us the figures that the Tories and not Labour created this massive financial hole that no-one can get us pout of, unless of course they are lying. Also you must be highly intelligent as you are going against the chief economist of PwC, one the big 4 global accountants as their assessment was undertaken in 2009, when labour were still in power. The great damage had been done therefore or cannot you understand this???

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bettysenior

27/03/2015 21:53

Miliband does not know what he is taking about, as there are many nations who trade with EU27 but are not members of the EU. Switzerland as an example is doing very nicely. Indeed at long last, some of our politicians in the EU (today in the UK) are just starting to realise that the TTIP is good for the multi-nationals profits and insatiable greed, but a disaster for 90%+ of the people, as it takes away the people’s democracy to challenge the economic and financial might of big business, and basically their jobs. http://worldinnovationfoundation.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-ttip-transatlantic-trade-and.html Indeed Robert Reich, the former… Read more »

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bettysenior

29/03/2015 14:53

It does not matter who is elected, as politicians just make pledges to break in the future as usual and are not worth the lip service that they express. Indeed, politicians are programmed to say things and promise things that they never carry through later, deceiving the poor electorate into thinking that the grass is greener on the other side. But what they are all about is power and more so, ‘Control’. That way they can make personally millions over several years for themselves and above their political remuneration, from agreements made with big business behind closed doors. It does… Read more »

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evad666

29/03/2015 18:44

Look carefully and you can see signs of the EU Commissions subcutaneous implant behind Dave’s Left ear.

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bettysenior

29/03/2015 19:47

Charles m

Have you a crystal ball please. Apparently you don’t accept the chief economist of PwC (one of the big 4 global accountancies) analysis that was undertaken in 2009 when Labour was still in power and the massive damage to the British economy had already been done.